Country Living Series

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Snark of the week

Boy oh boy, you're gonna love this.

Late on Monday night, just before shutting down my computer and going to bed, I received an email. Someone had evidently been reading some of my older WorldNetDaily columns and came upon a December 2008 column called A Nation Bursting with Spoiled Brats.

When I wrote that column, my intent was to jerk people out of their complacency and make them realize and appreciate all the luxuries we take for granted in our country. Man, was I wrong! Instead I got a veritable firestorm of people who disagreed. The responses I got inspired a follow-up column called How to Tell If You're a Spoiled Brat.

Right now I'm going to pause and ask you to read both those columns in order to better understand the email I received this week.

[...sound of ticking clock...]

Now that you've read them, consider this email:
_____________________________

Hello Patrice,

My name is Alex and I've have been an Economics and Sociology professor at [location of university removed so as not to identify the writer] for 6 years. I just finished reading your article, "A Nation Bursting With Spoiled Brats." To start, I just want you to know that I'm not a Republican or Democrat. Nothing I say here is influenced by any political philosophies or motives.

I enjoyed the first half of your article and agree completely that Americans today are wayyy too spoiled, fickle, and unappreciative. There's no denying that.

However, I am concerned with your ignorant, insensitive, and elitist rant vilifying less fortunate Americans (meaning less fortunate than you) that desire things such as free health care, affordable housing and food, and employment that pays a livable wage. I want to make clear that I do not support government pampering of criminals, illegal aliens, or lazy people who want to sit on their butts all day, and that I do not believe in punishing people for their success, but your views expressed in your article is exactly what anyone would expect from a person as financially well off as you who has never known what it's like to really struggle in poverty and who is extremely out of touch with reality, especially with regard to urban life.

A white American woman from the rural Mid-West who owns a business, a shop, a home on 20 acres of land, with home-schooled children, has a lot of nerve thinking she has the right to say ANYTHING against people who didn't come from where she did and who don't have what she has.

You think everyone in America has 20 acres of land, their own business, and the same opportunities that a white American woman has, who has an American sounding name, and who's ancestors probably have been here since the days of the colonial settlers? Do you think for example, that a person in the inner-city or suburb, who has a parent or family member who's a drug addict or who barely speaks English or who has no idea how the American economic and financial system works, whose family lives off of 11,000 per year from their slave-wage job, who went to poor schools with bad teachers and, as a result, got a poor education, and who live in a drug and crime infested community--do you think such a person is going to be inclined to be positive-thinking winner who goes out and seizes the world by the tail and be a success?

Do you think a parent who has to work 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet and who can barely put anything away at the end of the month, and who has no time to pursue further education or even to take care of their own kids, is going to easily escape the economic prison they're in with their heads held up high?

Sure, it happens, occasionally. We always hear inspirational stories of people who succeeded in the face of enormous hardship or who started a business idea or invented something that soon made them a successful millionaire, but people need to stop rubbing such success stories in the faces of the masses because it is a huge misrepresentation of reality. The number of people who come from nothing and succeed in escaping their life of struggle and poverty are in the extreme minority! Mathematical probability always allows for an occasional winner to slip through the cracks, the same as with the lottery. However, the average person who pursues the lottery just because of the "You never know" slogan, is a fool who will spend the rest of their lives trying and hoping, but will never win. Why? Because the system wasn't designed for everyone to make it and be financially well off. After all, if everyone had money and was doing well, the value of money would be worthless. The game is fixed and most people don't know the rules.

In conclusion, my point is, do you think the people in the above two examples I mentioned can, whenever they need it or feel like it, go out and afford a nice health care plan, buy good food with nutritional value, or find a job that will allow them to live like human beings and not like slaves? Should anyone be forced to live in a cramped, dirty, overpriced apartment or tiny cookie cutter house & lot where the neighbors on both sides are so close they can hear everything you do in your own house and vice-versa? In a greedy and corrupt economic and legislative system where the business owners and the wealthiest of the wealthy get all the breaks, loopholes, and advantages, and the masses carry all the nation's economic burdens, it is not socialism to even the bar a bit and give people a fair, human standard of living.

You, like many Americans who use the word "Socialism," have no idea what it means. What you label "Socialism," I and many others call common decency and love for your fellow mankind. And you call yourself a woman of God? Do you think Jesus Christ would have spoken about the masses as arrogantly and insensitively as you have in your article? Do you think Jesus, when he was on earth, would have denied someone food, water, shelter, or would have refused to cure their ailment just because they didn't have money, were unemployed, had no skills, didn't go to college, or were lazy? The Bible teaches us to be hard, self sufficient workers but it does not teach us to be insensitive and arrogant towards the less fortunate and does not teach us to deprive others of help because they're poor and have nothing to contribute. Jesus Christ would have found your article apalling and disgusting.

I would very much be interested in hearing what you have to say in reply, just as long as you have an open mind, can think for yourself, and do not spew a bunch of conservative rhetoric.

Sincerely,
Alex
___________________________

I immediately sent this email to my husband, and he and I laughed heartily. Don also started writing a rebuttal. He's not quite finished yet, but I will happily post his thoughts as soon as I have a chance.

Meanwhile, I knew you all would enjoy reading Alex's email as much as we did.

52 comments:

First thing I noticed was this guy is a socialogy professor. That's all I need to know about him.

Second, socialists usually deny being socialists. In that way, they are like criminals who deny doing their crimes. No surprise there.

Third, he can spew his socialist rhetoric but he doesn't want any "conservative rhetoric" from you. LOL, what a joke. He sets the rules and you are to blindly follow them. Give me a break. I would not reply, he isn't worth the time and effort.

Fourth, what is an "American sounding name?"

Fifth, what gives him the right to speak for Jesus? And which version of the Bible is he reading? Not mine.

What does this guy know about life in the inner city? He lives in a university town, has a government job, probably never struggled for anything in his life, and yet preaches to you about the poor down-trodden and underpivelged. BUNK!!!! The so-called underpriveledged get food stamps, free health care, free education, free housing, and free entertainment and still resent this country.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Michael Savage says liberalism is a mental disorder and I believe he is absolutely correct. We've seen and read the evidence time and again. I rest my case.

...if everyone had money and was doing well, the value of money would be worthless.

That's one of the stupidest things I've ever read. On the internet. That's no small achievement!

Anybody with a brain knows capitalism has improved our material standard of living enormously over the last century. The poorest of the poor are materially richer than the poor could have dreamed of a century ago. If everybody has more, how does that make anybody poorer? That doesn't even begin to make sense.

And then after spewing paragraphs of thoughtless rote leftwing rhetoric, this genius has the nerve to demand that you refrain from "conservative rhetoric". I'll go out on a limb and guess that he defines "conservative rhetoric" as anything that disagrees with his greedy little childlike worldview.

And then he tells us what Jesus really wants. Because he figures he's just a bit better than Jesus himself. Well, Jesus never told us to get elected, take other people's money, keep a fat cut off the top, and buy votes with the rest. Jesus advised us to be charitable with our own wealth instead. Jesus didn't love government power very much, last I checked.

Well, Patrice, I must be a lottery winner! I worked 2 and 3 jobs raising 7 kids. I ended up homeless at several points in my life, yet was able to work my way out of it---with NO government help (gasp!). At one point, I lived in a tent, because I had no other resources. I have lived in ghetto areas, and on farms. I lived in a neighborhood so bad I slept with a shotgun beside my bed---and actually had to hold it on people that tried to do a home invasion until the police showed up." Should anyone be forced to live in a cramped, dirty, overpriced apartment or tiny cookie cutter house & lot where the neighbors on both sides are so close they can hear everything you do in your own house and vice-versa? "I have lived in both, Alex. I wasn't FORCED to live there...it was all I could afford or find, so, like the saying goes, I pulled on my big girl panties and DEALT WITH IT!Right now I am starting my own home business. Yes, I am a white woman, but trust me, that does NOT give me an advantage...I am making and selling a more or less Mexican product to Mexican customers. I don't speak Spanish. I am at a distinct disadvantage because I live in an area that is 80% Hispanic. Yet I am slowly and surely succeeding.Why?Because I WORK at it.Yes, that four letter word that so many people try to avoid saying in polite company!W-O-R-K.Novel concept to those that spend their life in academia and have never had to pull a calf in the wee hours of Easter Sunday while cold rain is pouring down and the darn cow is determined to give birth in the middle of a field!I once offered a job to a person who was *hooked up* to all the entitlement programs. I was working janitorial at the time and one of my contracts was for cleaning rest area bathrooms along the interstate. The pay was adequate...above minimum. The person turned the job down. "I ain't gonna clean no toilets! I'd rather go out and rob banks than clean up some strangers sh*t!"Cleaning toilets was *beneath* them. Hurt their pride that I even offered them the job and they told me so. Yet their *pride* allowed them to take money they had done nothing to earn from the government (and hence from the tax payers).Socialism? HAH! It will never work, has never worked whenever it has been tried. North Korea says it is a socialist state...how's that working out?No, Alex, I do not want my tax dollars paying for the government encouraged laziness of others. You called low paid workers "wage slaves". What then are those millions of people dependent upon government entitlement programs?I consider them the true slaves of our American society. They have willingly given up their pride, dignity, honor and freedom to live on the taxpayers dime. Generation after generation now have only known government subsidized housing, food, medical care, etc. A few make it out...*lottery winners*, I guess.Except the only ones I have met that made it out of that poverty cycle made it out not through luck, but through WORK!

It is so obvious he has never read anything you have written before , nor does he read your blog. If he did , he would know where you stand on the issues he brought up.Not to worry Patrice , they rest of us do :) . He should read alittle more on your "thoughts" before he starts slinging the dirt. He has you pegged wrong.

So he's not a Democrat or Republican. He's an elitist Marxist, who more than likely grew up in suburbia, is now a professor, who spouts off opinions from his ivory tower. Probably feels guilty since he is comparatively well off compared to others. And other than this mention of Jesus, he probably has never darkened the doors of a church and is repeating what he was taught. Oh well. I'm sure glad that you and Don have this blog because I'm striving to be an elitist landholders like you guys are. Although I want 40 acres not 20.

**groan** I always want to ask to someone expressing these views who it is they are helping? They feel so passionate about the terrible needs of the impoverished, but have they the compassion to do anything to help? Jesus actually said the poor would always be with us. I agree there are bad situations, but sometimes it has to be bad to get people off theie duffs to get out of it. The reason poverty is so pervasive is that it's easy to be poor- you suffer, yeah--but not too much.

My friend who pastored a small church and now is a missionary in Mozambique told us what he always did when someone spouted inane idiocy.You simply say to them:

"Thank you for sharing that with us."

Nothing else. Not another word.

You see, that man doesn't want a reasoned discussion with you.

He couldn't care less what you write back to him. What he wants is to try and shut you up any way he can. One way is by wasting your precious time by trying to explain what you believe and why in an attempt to counter his libels.

He knows exactly what you believe. He's nothing more than an agent of the adversary.

i am still wide open mouth awed at the audacity of this dude/dudette....this is in fact a fine example of what and who we send our children to in the public and yes, some private educational institutions..to be indoctrinated by the indoctrinated. gee whiz, he sounds alot like our current president and his minions....and he also sounds like what gets spewed from the mouth of my sister in law the history teacher with he masters degree in economics and knows it all etc...etc... this is the kind of person that i personally make the sign of the cross before approaching with a common sense opinion. guess someone really pissed him off when he was in knee britches. if your dear hubby has a reply to this i look forward to reading it, however, i hope he is writing it for us and not for the guy who seems to think he is better than christ...

Me thinks Alex has a problem with hard working people that don't like nor want government hand outs. You see Alex, we have something called a work ethic. And Pride. What we work hard for is ours - not yours and I'll be darned if I want to share it with a lazy self-centered, woe is me person. If you want a better life you have to make choices - whine about it or get off your butt and go after that better life. It may not be easy, but it can be done. This country gives everyone the opportunity to better themselves - you just have to have the guts and determination to go after it. You can get a good education, too. And guess what? It's free - it's in a building called a library.People that rely month after month, year after year on all the free services they get are truly slaves of the government. Free health care? I pay for mine. Free housing? I worked hard and long hours and sacrificed to pay for my house. Good food? I grow my own. They had better wake up...the big pocketbook is empty and they will soon realize the free ride is over.

Patrice, there is no way this guy is "not a Republican or a democrat". He is a dyed in the wool democrat/progressive who has probably voted straight demo ticket most of his life.

The other thing I noticed right off the back is it quite clear he has not really bothered to read many of your posts. To say that you are well off is likely a stretch, based on many of your posts. You are most likely just like many of your readers, going about it day by day. Sure you have 20 acres, but you guys worked your butts off to get it and are using the land to supplement your lifestyle.

I think the one thing that he has completely missed is how hard you and Don have worked to get where you are. I don't know how long you guys have been together, but as I read it, you have spent most of your time together just to get to the point which you guys have reached. He missed the point you were trying to make at that many of the people you where referring to refuse to do the hard work necessary to reach a comfortable point. No, they want it now and they want someone to give it to them.

I look forward to Don's comments as I am sure they will be to the point, not that this guy is going to get it anyway. I’d be willing to bet that Don’s efforts will be an exercise in futility but I think most of us (your readers) are really looking forward to what he has to say.

I'm hustling here...got supper cooking and don't have time to stay, but if I'd had all the time in the world I doubt I could've managed more than the four paragraphs I did without emitting some decidedly unladylike noises.

Like many have said, he obviously doesn't know your story at all. And he doesn't realize what it takes to succeed in the real world, like so many of us do. Love the previous comment about WORK and making it your own way because it is the truth.

Also, living in cities in cramped apartments or houses on top of each other is what many socialists and liberals would prefer for all of us. And then we should all only walk or bike (or even better) take high speed train from place to place. No one really lives in all those fly over states anyway, right? Or is it no one who agrees with their policies and thoughts.

Can't wait to hear the reply. Not because he'll even listen, but because many of us will enjoy it!

Alex - if you're around reading this *please stick around awhile longer and get to know us!* You'll find real people, with real thoughts and ideas, living their lives as best they can. You might be pleasantly surprised at this community! Plus you'll have some great new viewpoints to share with your class~Clare

"who went to poor schools with bad teachers and, as a result, got a poor education"

This attitude drives me CRAZY!!! Where is it written that the ONLY place to receive an education is in "public school"? Why is it assumed that after you receive a diploma learning ends?

Most children are born with a drive to learn, a drive so strong that only extreme action can keep it from blossoming. An inborn desire to move, to communicate, to share what's inside of us with the rest of the world. Every five year old screams "Look at me!" as they show off the latest talent learned on the playground. One way or the other, each person learns what they need to survive in their world.

It is a shame that at times a person's world is so compressed that only a tiny window is left open for self expression, but I do not feel that this is totally the result of a bad education system. Each of us have choices we make about our life, and the lives we live are the results of those choices. A child chooses to go along with a crowd and stops doing his homework. A teenager chooses a behavior that feels good and soon many lives are in shambles. If good choices are punished and bad ones are expected how can we lay it all at the feet of a "bad education". This is the way life is expected to go. The good news is that each of us can change those choices whenever we want.

Making good choices and having a good life is hard. It has nothing to do with being white, being "rich", or how long your family has lived in America. Instead, a good life comes more from the ethics of hard work and frugality, and a simple desire to live in peace with God, yourself and others.

I think you and your family are a shining example of this "good life", Patrice, and it absolutely drives socialists like Alex insane when they compare the rewards from a life of hard work and submission (to God, husband, and family) to the shambles of a life where everything is free. All we can do is be an example of a better way. Thanks for all you do!

I am a married white female who has lived below the poverty level most of my life. May I say well below poverty much of the time (including now). I co-own my own business and 20 acres that we bought so we could take care of ourselves (but the government keeps making regulations to take away my money and my rights to work my own land - and even to OWN my own land. Let me make this clear I DON'T WANT GOVERNMENT HANDOUTS!!! I NEVER WILL!!! Why? Because if the government had stayed out of our lives, we would be far more successful than we are now.

Put this quote on for size:"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

How DARE YOU tell the world about poor people from YOUR lofty position. YOU are the arrogant imbecile that I fight against all the time just to make ends meet. I have trouble feeding and clothing my children because of all the people with your ignorant mentality.

The "FREE" health care you're talking about will cost $3000 per person. In our family, that's $15,000. That's ALL we make! NO THANK YOU! I don't want FREE health care! I don't want ANYTHING from the government (or YOU) except for them TO GET OUT OF MY LIFE!!! If I sound mad, I AM!

Patrice's posts are a perfect reflection of my values, and your post is so far away from rationality I can't even see straight!!! STOP trying to save everyone beneath your station in life because you have no concept! Government regulations are what is driving up the cost of medical care. Do you realize that the government has made it impossible for a poor person to pay for their medical care with any kind of a barter? Did you know they are working to regulate our FOOD and our farms?

Your better than thou comments are obviously made by a person who is stupid enough to vote all your own freedoms away.

Ok this fella said you live in a rual area of the midwest? I thought Idaho was like waaaay out there on the other side of the Rockies. Isn't there a map where he works? Or heck you can find anything on GoogleEarth it only takes a minute. I think this is the type of person we will one day see seting by a pond yelling at ducks.P.S. please forgive spelling errors i went to public school.

Wow, this guy is truly off his rocker. By the way, my reaction to one of his remarks caught my little sister's attention, and we went into a lovely long debate about this imbecile (and gave me a chance to indirectly introduce her to you!) among a great many things. :) If I had anything to say to this guy, I would tell him thank you for reminding me just how SANE I actually am. Little sis and I don't get to talk about thinks like this very often. Usually, I have to tiptoe around her because I never know what position she will take from one moment to the next, and she's a passionate debater. She's still conflicted, but she's coming around.

What is truly ridiculous about this jerk and his kind is how they try to lay the guilt trip on us anti-socialists, telling us how uncompassionate and uncaring we are towards the "less fortunate". The condescending and arrogant attitude of these self proclaimed intellectuals makes me sick.

He totally missed the point of your WND articles, anyway. It boggles my mind that he would claim to know how Jesus would feel about you, Patrice. It's obvious he hasn't a clue what the Lord came for.

I would accept an argument that the land of opportunity, is either not as opportune as it once was, or not as opportune for everyone. The fact that we are in a big recession at least supports the first point.

But he seems to have a very strong sense of entitlement to your property. A very strong one.

Not my area of expertise, but even the anarchist-communist types who would ban mega-corporations, absentee landlords, etc. don't have a problem with people who work on and live on their own land.

He picks and choices his biblical arguments, and gets them a little tangled in the process. Some of the early progressive reforms came from the post-millennial Christian views of the 19th century. From an American point of view, they were trying to make the United States God's Kingdom on Earth- the New Israel. Somehow I don't think what he is intending with his remarks.

An Armed Forces education may not be the easiest but it sure beats living in poverty and guess what, you earn a living in the meanwhile!Engineers. Pilots. Mechanics. There's plenty of people that make a good living who got their start in a green uniform. The problem here is that this ignoramus seems to associate "success" with being a millionaire.If he thinks that money solves all your problems then he obviously has no idea....

In a short few years, I'll be sending my kid off to college to be "educated" by professors like Alex. It makes me want to puke to think I'll be paying hard earned money so that "professors" like Alex can attempt to pollute my kid's mind. Oops, my fault. I don't have hard earned money - - I must have won life's lottery. Lucky me.

I hope your husband's response is a simple one that tells people where they can get their free 20 acres, free business, free home, and free shop. I think you've already told us where/how obtain the free intact family, drug free family, crime free family, and hard working family. I'm not sure how you and your husband could laugh at Alex's response. It was a slap to you and many of us. Please don't respond - -it's a waste of time.

I don't know why people can't disagree with someones opinion without attacking the person. Attacking the person just undermines your opinion.

My other opinion about this is that as a whole we need to be careful not to over generalize things/people/situations or to lump everyone into one category (i.e. all poor are lazy). It is not about poor or rich it is about righteous and unrighteous with money (how you earn money and what you do with it)...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NXaPwk64cY&feature=player_embedded#!.

We also do not have to agree with how people live or what they do but we don't have the right to judge or condemn them.

Wow! Alex, you are such a waste of perfectly good oxygen! What planet did you come from? You want Patrice to have an open mind?!! You can't be serious! Open your own mind!

This is so sad. There is no telling how much damage he has done through all the years he's been teaching!

Alex, people like you make me fear for my country. You make me fear that the best days of our country are behind us. But, then I think about people like Patrice and Don, and I think there is still hope.

I am grateful that we may each express our own opinions and have the ability to read, speak, and share our different type of lifestyles together. I may not always agree with others but I am grateful for a different perspective. I am grateful that I have the intelligence to analyze others opinions and decide the best way to live my life. We are all right and we are all wrong. I may be wrong but I am grateful for the opportunity to be wrong and learn from it.

Well, most of the country apparently has this opinion, seemingly concentrated on the Left Coast. I was reading a news article just a couple of days ago concerning the current economic crisis and the problems with California's budget. One of the people the article focused on was a college student. This young lady said that she was the first in her family to be able to go to college (good for her!) but that she was having to work 40 hour weeks to afford to go to a state college and that she would graduate with about $20,000 in student loans and that she wasn't sure how she would be able to get a job in this economy. Her complaint was that the cost of college was too much for what she could make. Now guess her major: political science.

When I went to college back in the 80's, I also worked a 40 hour a week job (I had a new family to support) and between my wife and I we had about $20,000 in student loans in 1980's dollars. I picked electrical engineering and she picked nursing because we knew that we could get work and make a decent living. We got some help from the government in the form of Pell grants but we figured out to live on what we made. Now we are living comfortably though we don't buy our every whim.

At what point did people decide that they should have every heart's desire and that it should be given to them without question? At what point did we start listening to people from the world of academia who don't operate in the "real" world? I honestly think that the Internet has been the biggest detriment to our society because every person has the ability to spout whatever gibberish happens to coalesce between their ears. And there are thousands of people out there who hear it who have no concept of how to filter out gibberish from reasonable conversation. The anonymity of the Internet also gives people the freedom to say whatever they want to whomever they want (as I'm doing now) with no fear of physical confrontation from the safety of their little nests.

Alex, Do you honestly believe in Magic? as well as Yashua? at the same time, while you're quoting the Good Words of the Lord, our God?Stop Blaspheming His Words!

Those 20 acres of progress you begrudge the Lewis' did not just "poof" andappear with mind energy and a wave of a wand!It also did not become fruition from stepping on, pushing aside, or over other people either, to achieve what they can now call their own!

Get yourself back in line with reality and out of the magical thinking please! Anyone who wants to advance themselves MUST work, and work consistently and hard toward a goal nowadays, in this economy, whatever that goal may be, small or huge.

After reading your writing a second time, I think there are remnants of those abhorrent social issues that you continue to refute as being "socialism", quoted in your tirade, aimed in personal resentment of the outcomes of your OWN misdirected choices made in your own life, obviously. There is empathy in your writing, and not just sympathy.

May you find clarity, and be blessed with enough time to be able to impact the rest of your life's goals and challenges.

What we all need is to stop making excuses for our past and our present, and for our future, and STOP blaming others, including God!

Pray to God for personal strength, personal responsibility for our own lives, and for personal accountability when we FAIL.

I have one observation to make to Alex - I was homeless with two children once. I had no job and no money. I was on Food Stamps for 6 months. I had no health care either because I didn't want goverment health care. Food Stamps were humiliating enough. But through God's provision and my willingness to do whatever it took, I was taken out of that. Government does not give incentive. It only gives handouts. If, as you say, poor people want health care and homes and all the rest, they must trust God and follow his lead, working for it all. That is the way that we feel worthwhile rather than just humiliated.

6 years ago, I was divorced and lost my wife, house and kids. Could have declared bankruptcy and given up, but busted my hind end, and tried to dig my way out of the hole.

Tuesday my wife and I will close on a house on 10 acres that at one time I thought I would never have. It wasn't "handed" to me, my wages aren't "handed" to me. Granted, I believe the Lord provides, but I also believe that you have to do your part, too.

Most people, if left alone by the nanny state, will do what they need to do to dig themselves out of their holes.

Alex has a flawed view of a capitalistic economy and sees it as a fixed-sum game. Instead of the economy growing as more people lift themselves out of poverty, he sees it as a limited pie: the more people who partake, the smaller the slice. He also must have an ego the size of Mt. Rushmore to know what Jesus would say to you. Sheesh!There's just so much source material here for comedy, but I'll end now.

I would like to know where Alex lives and how many "poor, unfortunate souls who've been FORCED to live in bad circumstances" he was moved into his home. If it's zero, then he obviously has no compassion and is scum of the earth. Yeah, WHO is it who needs to have an open mind????? Great response, as always, Patrice! I always enjoy your writing.

Alex, I don't even know where to begin. Your remarks are so convoluted that they are the equivalent of trying to take tight knots out of a very fine chain.

I'm not rich. I make $40K a year and I work darned hard for it. I scrimped to buy my homes, and I raised two boys by myself. I don't recieve anything from the government and I don't WANT anything from the government, except to be left alone!

The one thing I want to respond to is that Jesus was NOT a Socialist. Since you are in the mode of reading back articles, why not read the article by Tom Snyder, on WND, posted October 12, 2010: No, Jesus Was Not A Socialist.

If you want to tell everyone what Jesus would and would not do, then don't forget the part that says that if you don't work, you don't eat, and not to even ASSOCIATE with someone who is idle. 2 Thessalonians 3:6-14:

"In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule:

“If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”

"We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right.

"If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother."

There is much more I could respond to, but I think that having kicked this stool out from under you, everything else you espoused falls like a house made out of a deck of cards.

Mrs Lewis; Since everyone has already written what I believe, I have but one thing to add. Challenge this person to trade places for 2 weeks. You can correct the cowpatties hes been spewing to his students, & your husband & 2 daughters can bring this racist elitist off his high horse. He thinks people (he didn't state but he was speaking about minorities) can only succeed with govt help, your family will show him differently. But he won't, because hes really a coward. When those who teach theory, come face to face with reality, they slither back into their holes. You on the other hand would sparkle in his world.

It seems that our "educational" system is filled with people like Alex. I have to deal with a man who used to be a middle school vice principal and now runs the ISP that I use to access the Internet. He is just like Alex believing that he knows way more than everyone else and it is his way or no way.

I have to say that dealing with this egotistical man makes me glad that we home schooled our son.

If you can read between the lines, Alex believes that racism keeps black people down because the system is corrupt and favors the rich. This is why he keeps addressing your whiteness. He is confused because he doesn't address how ghetto culture needs to be changed in order to help inner city children strive for the American dream (your first stint in prison should not be a rite of passage, for example). Somehow you are to blame because you are white and have never had a drug addict mama. I don't understand how he feels that whites who don't want to work are spoiled selfish welfare brats, but when you're black it is ok to feel entitled to welfare at the evil white taxpayer's expense. His whole attitude is racist because he says black people simply can't achieve because of a corrupt system, when we know they can because they are human beings like ourselves. And, yeah, he read a sentence or two and applied his stock liberal rant that doesn't actually apply to most of your article.

I read somewhere that the difference was Jesus said to help those less fortunate but he never demanded we give to him so he could do the redistribution. As it is, some work, go home, flop down. Others work some more. Some have great talents and beauty. We can never legislate equality.